


The Skull on the Shelf

by 3littleowls



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Baker Street, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Elf on a Shelf, Games, Gen, John is a Saint, a bit of childhood feels, skull friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3littleowls/pseuds/3littleowls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John plays "The Elf on the Shelf" with Sherlock. Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Skull on the Shelf

**Author's Note:**

> From the modern children’s holiday game, [The Elf on a Shelf. ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elf_on_the_Shelf)

Sherlock had very effectively tuned out John’s nattering the whole taxi ride home. He had reduced the noise to a low buzz in the background, like the sound of fat honeybees. The droning was more pleasant than his actual _words_.

John stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the stairs to their flat, and Sherlock was able to just keep from ramming into him. John spun around and glared, scant inches from his face and now impossible to ignore.

“Have you been listening to me at all?” John groused. “I’m trying to make you understand that you can’t just treat people like that, you tit!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“They were just children, Sherlock. You interrogated two primary students until they _cried_.”

Sherlock sighed. “They will recover, John. They suffer worse on the playground from their peers.”

John unlocked the door and hung up his coat. Sherlock handed him his coat and scarf too, not bothering to hang it himself, since John was conveniently _there_. John took Sherlock’s Belstaff with an exasperated frown.

“That’s not the point! It’s a week until Christmas. You could be a little nicer. ‘Goodwill towards men’ and all that.”

Sherlock winced. “Ugh. Insipid drivel.”

John headed into the kitchen and put the kettle on. “You may think so, but one of the kids asked me if Father Christmas had you on his naughty list. How do you think that made me feel? Horrible, that’s how.”

Sherlock rummaged in the cabinets until he found a package of biscuits. “I’m supposed to concern myself with a child who thinks that a rotund man in a velvet suit minds our actions and keeps a list?” Sherlock stopped unwrapping the snacks and considered. “Hmm. Wait. The tyke could have a point. That sounds an awful lot like Mycroft.”

John huffed. “See? Exactly what I mean. It wouldn’t hurt you to not be such an arse for a few days out of the year. Or hey, how about try to be considerate? Keep it up, and maybe you won’t get anything for Christmas at all.”

Sherlock shrugged and popped a biscuit in his mouth.

####

“John. John.” Sherlock came stomping out of the toilet the next morning, his second best dressing gown flapping behind him. “John!”

John sat calmly in his chair, reading the paper. “Morning, Sherlock.”

“Can you explain why my skull is in the linen cabinet with my toothbrush between its teeth?” Sherlock asked imperiously.

John sat down his paper, startled. “Oh. You didn’t touch it, did you?”

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at him. “Nooooo.”

“Oh good!” John sighed in relief. “Close call, that.”

Sherlock shook his head, damp curls bouncing. “Let’s start again. Why is the skull in the cabinet with my toothbrush? Why shouldn’t I touch it?”

John quirked a grin and picked up his paper, shaking the pages out. “I don’t know why he’s in the cabinet with your toothbrush. You are going to have to ask him that. As for as why you can’t touch him, if you do, he’ll lose his magic. Then he won’t be able to fly to the North Pole and tell Father Christmas if you were a prat or a decent human being today.” John lifted the newspaper up to hide his face.

Sherlock stared for a moment, his face a blank. He then shook himself, and reached across John to grab his mug. He sniffed the contents suspiciously. Tasted it. Coffee, about twenty minutes old, no sugar.

“I suppose it’s a promising sign that you're not drinking this early in the morning. However, that leads me to ask, are you suffering from a mental lapse?”

John peered over the paper. “‘Never heard of ‘The Elf on The Shelf’? Not surprised. Children adopt these magical elf dolls, you see. During the day they look like normal dolls and watch the kids to see if they are naughty or nice. At night, they come alive and report in to Santa. When the kids wake up the next morning, they find the elf frozen in whatever activity it had been doing the night before. If you touch the elf at any time, he loses his magic powers, and Father Christmas will be pretty miffed.”

Sherlock blinked his eyes rapidly. “This is folklore is based on the concept of a holiday intelligence network? That’s disturbing, to say the least.” Sherlock grimaced. “You are not trying to imply that my skull is an ‘Elf on a Shelf’, are you?”

“I’m quite sure it is,” John smirked.

“It’s a _skull!_ ” Sherlock waved his hands in the air.

“You’re not exactly a little boy, either. An elf doll just didn’t seem as appropriate. So, skull it is. It’s an improvement, believe me. Those little elf dolls are creepy as hell.”

Sherlock humphed. “You don’t expect me to play along with with absurdity, do you?”

John calmly folded the paper and looked up at Sherlock, and said very seriously, “If you touch the skull, and if Father Christmas thinks you have been naughty, there will be no Christmas.”

Sherlock flung his arms out. “ _So?”_

John pointed a finger at him. “You pretend you don’t like Christmas, but I know better. No Christmas means no fairy lights, none of your damned choir music, no presents and no gingerbread from Mrs Hudson.”

“No gingerbread?” Sherlock’s eyes went wide at the threat.

“It’s just one week until Christmas. Don’t be a dick, and don’t mess with the skull.”

Sherlock swanned away back towards the toilet, muttering to himself. Stupid childish game. John couldn’t have been serious about the fairy lights, right? He liked those as much as Sherlock did, surely. It would also be downright cruel to deny Mrs Hudson her holiday fun, feeding him up. He couldn’t have meant it.

Sherlock opened the door of the loo, and flung the cabinet door open. The skull was still there, toothbrush jauntily hanging out of its jaws. Sherlock shut the door with a slap.

“How am I going to clean my teeth, John?” He called down the hall. He heard John chuckle.

Infuriating man. Sherlock picked up John’s toothbrush and grinned, squirted toothpaste on it and stuck in in his mouth. It served him right, after all.

####

The next morning, Sherlock woke and was happy to find his toothbrush back in its proper place.

He was not happy to see that the skull had been posed on the coffee table. John’s laptop was open and the skull was perched on the edge of the keyboard, giving the appearance that it had been browsing the web. Knowing John, that meant stupid videos of cats, or uninspired pornography.

Sherlock bent down to see what was up on the screen. It was John’s blog, with a new post.

_Our ask box is open! In appreciation to our readers and in the spirit of the holiday season, Sherlock will be answering your questions today._

“Get my revolver. I am going to kill him in his sleep,” he told the skull.

####

On the third morning, Sherlock woke, tired from a long night of answering ridiculous questions from John’s blog. A good percentage of them had been on the same theme, and wanted to know if he and John were shagging. He was able to very efficiently group them and answer in one concise reply.

He needed coffee, and he sure the hell hoped John hadn’t played any tricks on his morning caffeine. He stumbled into the kitchen, gratefully finding coffee in the pot. He also noticed that someone, likely John, had cleaned the counters overnight. His chemistry equipment had been stashed in a corner- where he also found the skull.

It was sitting jauntily among his beakers and slides, wearing Sherlock’s safety glasses. A sticky note was placed inside a petri dish:

_Good scientists don’t pollute the kitchen with their experiments before Christmas._

Sherlock cursed.

####

On the fourth morning, the skull was found on the living room floor on a pillow. It had an old fashioned ice pack on its head and a bottle of pharmacol between its teeth. Littered near the skull’s “bed,” Sherlock spotted an ashtray with several cigarette butts, a half-empty bottle of Talisker, and a condom wrapper.

John and Stamford had been out on the pull the night before, and he had come back late. Sherlock deduced that the “skull” must not be up to making demands that day.

####

Sherlock found the skull the next morning right on his bedroom floor, covered in ketchup. Blue police line tape was strung around his bedroom furniture and little numbered evidence tags marked scattered bullet casings. Sherlock tittered. He actually _liked_ this one.

His mobile pinged. He picked it off the nightstand and read the incoming text.

_Lestrade called. New case. Don’t be an arse to Anderson. Skull will know. -J_

Sherlock dropped his phone with a tortured moan. Was Mrs Hudson’s gingerbread really worth the cost? It had better be a double batch. With extra ginger.

####

The following day, Sherlock was humming to himself, in a good mood. He was able to breakfast, clean his teeth and shower with no sign of the purportedly magical cranium. Perhaps, the day before Christmas Eve, John had grown bored of his childish little game.

He laid out a clean suit and freshly pressed shirt from his closet, and went to his bureau for pants and socks. When he opened the drawer that held his Sock Index, he found the skull, nested between the Alpaca blends and Argyles. It had socks rolled up into each eye socket, and a pair hanging out of its mouth. A bit of paper trimmed to look like a sock was taped to its forehead that simply said: _Pick up the dry cleaning! Get Mrs Hudson’s, too!_

Sherlock carefully pulled out a pair of socks without touching the his damned bony foe, and slammed the drawer shut. He supposed he had time to pop to the cleaners that morning- it was on the way to the music shop, anyway. It was sensible and had nothing to do with Christmas coming. Nothing at all.

####

Sherlock woke the morning of Christmas Eve sprawled on the sofa. John had already left for the day, and apparently had thrown a blanket over him. Sherlock sat up, rubbing his eyes and immediately saw a tower of fairy lights, tinsel garland and a wreath piled in front of the fireplace. On the very top was the stupid skull, wearing reindeer antlers.

A scroll of paper was pinned in front of the pile:

_You can decorate this evening if you remember to pick up the milk. Two four pints, semi-skimmed._

####

John came home later that afternoon, heavily laden with packages and shopping bags.

“Hello!”

“I got the milk,” Sherlock reported from behind his laptop screen.

John smiled and set down his shopping. “I’m proud of you Sherlock. This week you got milk, and the dry cleaning. You didn’t make the kitchen a toxic wasteland. You answered people’s questions on the blog without starting an Internet flame war. While you weren't exactly cordial to Anderson the other day, you didn’t tell him to bugger off. Which he deserved, for the record. Really, that was for Lestrade. It helped his blood pressure not having to shout at you two.”

John went over to the skull and picked it up from it’s tower of fairy lights. “See, it’s not that hard to be nice to people. I’m proud of you, Sherlock.”

“It was _exceedingly_ difficult. Since you held Christmas hostage with your little game, I had no choice,” Sherlock sulked.

“Oh come on. It was just a bit of fun. Being good for Father Christmas, like when we were kids.”

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. “What do you imagine my Christmases were like as a child, John?”

John pursed his lips. “You didn’t have Santa, did you?”

Sherlock laughed, but it was a bit bitter. “No. The house was decorated in holly and spruce, certainly no gauds like tinsel or fairy lights. We exchanged gifts, carefully selected by my Father’s personal assistant. Then we had a very large and impersonal dinner with family members that no one really liked. Father insisted we go to church, which included a performance of _The Messiah_ , which was the one bright spot in a rather tedious affair.”

“Damn Sherlock. I’m sorry. No wonder you and Mycroft don’t have Christmas together.”

“I only started celebrating it again because Mrs Hudson baked,” Sherlock admitted.

John shook his head. “Then you literally got a taste of what you missed. The gingerbread, fairy lights, crackers and everything. Then I wander in and threaten to take it away from you. You should have said something.”

“Why would I have done that?”

“Because it was insensitive to play a children’s game as a gag….oh. Oh.” John grinned.

Sherlock just tilted his head. “Yes.”

“For one year, you finally got to experience the magic of Christmas. Something you never got to do as a child. That’s why you played along.”

Sherlock smirked. “Some of your ideas with the skull were rather inspired. I didn’t care for you disorganizing the Sock Index, but the crime scene was creative.”

John laughed and held the skull to his ear. “Well, the skull tells me you passed with flying colors. You should expect a stocking in the morning from Father Christmas.”

“You didn’t have to do that, John.”

“I didn’t. It’s Santa, you dolt. Now let’s go and see if Mrs Hudson has a plate of gingerbread for us whilst we get these decorations up.”

Sherlock shut down his computer with a nod. He had a little secret of his own. John didn’t seem to know that skulls employed in Santa’s Intelligence Service could easily be convinced to work double duty and report in on the behavior of multiple members of a household. Sherlock was quite sure Father Christmas had a stocking for John that year, too.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Three Wise Betas, Alutiv, Anarfea and Gowerstreet who came bearing gifts of proper tense and correct apostrophes.


End file.
